The Blessed Precept
by lyradaemon
Summary: Based on the 'Kushiel's Legacy' trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. Phedre muses on the meaning of 'Love as thou wilt' and what it means to her


**The Blessed Precept, **_by lyradaemon_

**Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to Jacqueline Carey. I wish it was otherwise (grabs Joscelin) but unfortunately it isn't. Ah well.**

**A/N: This is just some drabble I dreamt up the other day. Pretty meaningless and pointless; still, I decided to write it anyway. It's a bit nonsensical in places and for that I sincerely apologize!**

_Love as thou wilt_

Blessed Elua's precept.

I have tried to follow it; tried and betimes failed. How can mere mortals live as the gods bid us? Is it truly possible to be as they wish us to be? I do not think so. Yet I try.

There are many things in my life of which I am not proud. It has been revealed to me in the _thetalos_, revealed but not set aright. Well and so, I was an imposter, I should not have been there. I have been proud, vain, conceited; I have hurt people, and taken pleasure in the doing. I have sunk to the very depths of depravity; sold myself, my very soul and enjoyed every moment of it.

I have done all this and more.

Yet I try to accept it. It is hard; ah, Elua, so hard!; to realize that _I_ have been the cause of countless deaths, innocent blood shed on my account. Alba, Troyes-les-Monts, Darsanga. _Love as thou wilt_. Is Elua's precept reflected in all that I have done? I like to think so; yet in my heart of hearts, I know it is not true.

Elua knows how many I have hurt during my journeying; I cannot even begin to name them all. But there is one; always one.

Joscelin.

Ah, how Elua must have smiled when he set our hearts together! My lord Kushiel too. A Cassiline and an _anguissette_; the two most ill-matched beings ever conceived. Yet we had been bound together and, through the direst of circumstances, we came to the same conclusion: without each other our lives were meaningless.

Is that what Elua meant when he spoke those words so long ago? To love someone, not for who they are – after all, Joscelin and I had despised each other all those years ago, simply for our very natures – but for what they mean to us, _despite_ who they are? No matter what they have done to us, we must love them no less? I do not know.

Can we ever comprehend what someone means to us until they are taken away? I know now that with Joscelin I am whole; he is my conscience, my better side. I love him like I have never loved anyone – nor ever will, I think. He has protected me without considering the cost to himself, and to others. He put me before his own life; for that, I have no words of gratitude.

I have done that too.

On that fateful morning, on the isle of Kapporeth in distant Saba, I was willing to sacrifice my life for that of another. Imriel. Imriel, the son of traitor – two traitors! – son of the one person who always understood who, and what, I was. _Melisande_. Who could have forseen that one day, I would be the one raising the child of the woman who sold me to the Skaldi? Not I; nor Joscelin. Yet against all odds, Imri has become as dear to both of us as each other, and I do not think there is ever a day when either Joscelin or I wish that things had turned out differently. Mayhap in Darsanga, during those endless nights, I wondered why I was risking my life – and the life of my beloved – for a traitor's get. Not now.

I almost gave up my life for my Imri and I do not think that, given a second chance, I would have done it differently. _Make of the self a vessel where the self is not_. I did and I lived because of it.

Every day I watch Joscelin when he thinks I am not looking. I love the way his smile comes so freely to those he cares for; I love the way he is quick to forgive, always willing to teach. I love the way he sees every day as the most beautiful one he has ever seen. Truly, I believe Joscelin – a Cassiline, of all people! – has embraced Elua's precept to the fullest. It is true that once it was not so; now, it is. He has grown wiser, as have I, in the understanding of what it means to love. When I first met him – despite finding him beautiful – I thought he was the most stubborn, arrogant, misguided man I had ever encountered. He was raised to believe that Elua was the misguided one – _Elua!_ Now he has seen, truly seen, Elua's love and glory at work, in all it's myriad forms and he understands that it was through his workings that we entered Darsanga, and lived to tell of it.

I always believed it was so.

Despite being descended from Elua himself, we D'Angelines are sometimes quick to forget his precept and what it truly means. It is not, I must add, that I believe it is _possible_ to understand all the mysteries in those few words. Yet I do not think that we as a people are ever completely willing to explore it in all it's fullness. I try. Every day, I promise to myself that I will do as Blessed Elua willed me to do. It is hard, but in the end I believe it is worth the struggle.

_Love as thou wilt_.

It is enough.

**A/N: What do you think? Awful? Probably. Still, I appreciate all criticism: I want to write something a bit longer sometime, and any comments to help me are welcome. Lyradaemon x**


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